lolsparty

We recorded this podcast once again at the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown. Their rooms for the remaining home games are booking up very quickly so get on that or wind up staying somewhere where the closest thing in walking distance is a Burger King.

We Couldn’t Have One Without the Other

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we’d be talking to ourselves.

1. The Offense

starts at 1:00

We welcome our new version of John O’Korn overlords. All hail the practice hype. Especially nice that we don’t have to worry what happened to Brandon Peters anymore. Throw the ball to Perry and the tight ends: easy. Chris Evans also took back his job. Offensive line…that’s a discussion.

2. The Defense

starts at 23:06

We welcome back our Don Brown overlords. We’re not allowed to sacrifice unto linebacking god Devin Bush until we have properly performed the ritual reading of Purdue’s second half drives. Praise also unto the secondary, McCray for not getting edged in this game, and even the refs, if backhandedly.

3. Special Teams and Game Theory

starts at 37:27

Brad Robbins has a prospectin’ name: Ol’ Quinn Nordin. Long speculation on the maximum number of players Michigan can reasonably have in the box score wearing number three. Also Brad Robbins has the punting job. Purdue’s punter erased DPJ. Crawford kickoff grumblin.

4. Talking Big Ten with Jamie Mac

starts at 48:20

Just Ace and Jamie since sick Brian was done being a jackhammer. What happens in a game versus Vegas hopefully stays in Vegas. What happens at night in Kinnick fortunately stays there too. Maryland on its fourteenth starting quarterback in six years loses to Scott Frost, who’s going to have a better job than UCF next year. Speaking of, Nebraska is horrible. Michigan State nearly loses their quarterback in a valiant attempt to win with dignity. Blocky-catchy offense FTW!

Per a source, Michigan State had the lead for Irving-Bey even before he had an offer from MSU. Michigan State co-defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett has been in touch with Irving-Bey since January and has done an outstanding job recruiting him. Irving-Bey plans to visit Michigan State again very soon. A source added that if MSU stays on Irving-Bey that he’ll end up a Spartan soon.

Some recruiting insiders are hearing Irving-Bey is leaning towards Michigan, but a source close to him told Spartan Tailgate, "I know he loves Michigan State and I'm surprised he hasn't already committed." Irving-Bey plans to take an official visit Tennessee later on this month. We are also told Irving-Bey plans to visit Michigan State again in the near future. Irving-Bey is a high priority for Michigan State because he has the ability to play the same positions for MSU as Malik McDowell does. He can play multiple positions on the defensive line and with McDowell likely to declare for the NFL after his junior season, Irving-Bey is a must get for the Spartans in the class of 2017.

By that time, however, Irving-Bey had become an increasingly frequent visitor to Ann Arbor. A visit to East Lansing (for the Michigan game, incidentally) was sandwiched between an October unofficial and December official visit to Michigan. As Crystal Ball picks to Michigan came flooding in, SpartanTailgate sources changed their tune:

According to a Wolverine source, "The only way Michigan doesn't get Irving-Bey is if he waits too long."

Irving-Bey has taken official visits to Maryland on Dec. 3 and Michigan on Dec. 10. Irving-Bey is announcing at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and likely to select Michigan but could still visit MSU.

A source close to Irving-Bey said, "Deron is still looking at Michigan State and plans to visit there in January."

247Sports ranks Irving-Bey as the No. 5 strong-side defensive end in the country. Michigan State is recruiting to Irving-Bey play defensive tackle.

A source added that, "Irving-Bey's senior film wasn't that impressive and doesn't play with a high motor."

Spartan Tailgate was told Irving-Bey is not likely to end up at Michigan State unless they miss out on several other defensive linemen targets ahead of him. That's one of the reasons why Irving-Bey hasn't taken an official visit to Michigan State yet.

Here are a couple totally unrelated screenshots:

Here is a full list of 2017 Michigan State commits on the defensive line along with their 247 Composite rankings:

The Spartans do not have a defensive tackle in the class and zero of the 13 DTs in the 247 database holding offers from MSU are listed with more than "cool" interest in the Spartans. Seven of them have already committed to other schools, including Michigan commit Phil Paea. The remaining six don't have a single MSU Crystal Ball selection between them. The only strongside end listed as "warm" for MSU weighs 215 pounds and is ranked 1240th overall. They're expected to pick up a commitment from a 230-pound weakside end they offered yesterday who's ranked 2106th.

But, yeah, I'm sure they passed on the consensus four-star from Flint because he was too far down their board.

A source tells me Irving-Bey is not expected to make that January visit to East Lansing.

*The rest of the list: #5 Christian Cumber (Colorado State commit), #4 Lynn Bowden (Kentucky holds large lead on Crystal Ball), #3 Ambry Thomas (heh), and #2 KJ Hamler (Penn State). I'm noting this both for the lols and to save for posterity in case it mysteriously disappears from SpartanTailgate's archives.

GURU RATINGS

Scout

Rivals

ESPN

247

247 Comp

4*, #24 DE,
#279 Ovr

3*, #18 SDE

4*, 81, #18 DT,
#258 Ovr

4*, 93, #5 SDE,
#186 Ovr

4*, #9 SDE,
#270 Ovr

Scout and ESPN both have Irving-Bey at the tail end of their top 300 lists; 247 is the bullish outlier, Rivals the bearish. His position rankings are all over the place because there isn't a consensus on whether he'll wind up on the inside or outside of the defensive line. Like fellow 2017 commits James Hudson and Donovan Jeter, Irving-Bey could be a DT or SDE at Michigan, and like Hudson he even has some potential as an offensive tackle.

Irving-Bey is listed at 6'5" by every site save ESPN (6'4") and somewhere between 265 and 284 pounds to every site save Rivals (a comically low/outdated 245).

If I were simply hoping to sum up the game in GIF form, the above would suffice. But y'all had requests. So, so many requests. I appreciated each and every one of them.

Before I get to those, though, I have to acknowledge one reader who went above and beyond this week. The MGoStaff will all have physical copies of Monday's peak self-burn State News thanks to user TitaniumTim, who responded to my call yesterday and confirmed today that a shipment is headed our way. We cannot thank him enough.

Sponsors

A big thanks to our sponsors. The show is presented by UGP & Moe's and frankly would not be happening without them; Rishi and company have been on board here from almost the beginning. Shopping with them helps us and supports good dudes. Check out the new Bo Store on Main.

1. Offense

Higdon is better than Weber. That unstoppable offset draw. Braden at left tackle. Speight puts himself back on the Rudock trajectory. A wild Wheatley touchdown appears.

2. Defense

starts at 22:15

Eh, it was the usual. Hurst bellyrub and the likeability factor, Glasgow running a quarterback out of bounds for no gain. Nitpicks: Metellus suspectedon the Turner catch over Gedeon, Winovich blamed for that one long run, and random chance finally answering a prayer blamed for the TD.

3. Fifteen minutes of giggling over Ohio State

starts at 36:44

This was an upset, but lol: Ohio State has a loss—kick six part of an uncharacteristic special teams meltdown. Barrett shut down as a runner.

4. Talking Big Ten With Jamie Mac

starts at 52:38

Perry Hills: no picks! Funniest part of MSU-Maryland? Eastern Michigan is ahead of Michigan State in S&P+ rankings. Iowa could backdoor cover that 7-win threshold this year with a bowl win. Wisconsin appears to be legit; Nebraska hasn’t really paid anyone. Clayton Thorson: unstoppable throw god 2.0; Austin Carr could have something to do with that. Lagow took the chaos out of chaosteam; their right tackle is a problem spot. Rutgers-Minnesota was an even game. Commissioning Rivalry Trophy for Rutgers-MSU.

Happy 10-year anniversary, Anthony. Anthony? You can get up now. Seriously you guys just scored or something I think.

I LIKE YOUR DISTRIBUTION

The conference win probabilities in Ecky Pting’s mid-season B1G Expectations say Michigan is likely to make it to The Game undefeated and has a 37% chance of winning out. Also it’ll be an uphill battle for one adjacent rival to make a bowl according to S&P:

State’s expected conference wins is now at 2.7, meaning if they’re a little bit lucky they’ll finish this season 5-7. Everybody in the B1G West is mediocre except Illinois leans pretty bad and Purdue is awful.

PATRICK SEES RED, DAVID SEES BLUE

BlueBarron is Patrick Barron, whose photography was first featured in HTTV Hockey-Hoops several years back when he was on the Daily, and who’s now part of our staff. He went to Rutgers and wrote a photo journal capturing the electric atmosphere of a night game in Piscataway:

Okay surely they looked more excited AFTER the game started.

See? There are two dudes behind the field goal who even have their arms in the air.

As Brian mentioned in his game column after Rutgers, the last time a team got beat as badly as Rutgers by Michigan, it was 1939, and the University of Chicago (HINT HINT) shut down its football team shortly after. The grandson of 1939 Michigan player Fred Olds wrote a diary about his grandpa’s team and how the OP became a fan. Those pre-War teams do still get together, though there are very few of them left.

And finally on Wisconsin week we were treated to a trip down Badger Memory Lane, which was quite pleasant thankyouverymuch until 2005 ruined everything.

EARLY SPEIGHT vs EARLY RUDOCK

Blue Indy earned undying MGoRespect for coming up with a statistical comparison of Speight’s first half versus Rudock’s last year. Remember when we thought Rudock was miserable, and that put a hard cap on how good the year could go? It’d be nice to have some way to compare those. I thought to take Indy’s stats and chart against opponent pass defense:

Good pass defenses are on the left

The big differences came early: even if UCF ends up much worse than they look to S&P+ right now, that game and the Hawaii one were more efficient than any Speight played in the first half of last year. Rudock got two really bad pass defenses and was middling; Speight blew his away. The rest are non-opponent-dependent meh performances.

LOOKALIKES:

I’ve been waiting for this series to come up with some good ones before throwing them all out there.

Unfortunately Rutgers players mostly look like Rutgers, all Wisconsin players look the same, and Penn State players…we’re not going there.

REDSHIRTS REMAINING: Redshirt tracker is down to Peters, Walker, Spanellis, Ron Johnson, and Quinn Nordin. Keep your eyes out going forward for some of the burned shirts who might yet get a medshirt if they didn’t see the field against Penn State or after. Candidates include Davis, Nate Johnson, Eubanks, Dwumfour, Uche, Kemp, Gil, and Mbem-Bosse.

Brown played a lot of the game in a dime-ish package with three down linemen—looked like Michigan practicing against Ohio State. Odd fronts, Taco at LB depth.

Josh Metellus might be a find; Devin Bush Sr. is angry he wasn’t more recruited. Devin Asiasi almost certainly is.

DL salivation: Taco is into the backfield before you can say Ta. Finally seeing Mone too. Mo Hurst is basically back; for Godin to start over him is wow-ish. Both holding up to double teams well.

What’s up with State? Last year they were more like a lucky 8-4 team that now lost Burbridge and Cook. MSU/Northwestern has M00N potential. Ohio State vs Wisconsin looks like flipside of Michigan vs. Wisconsin.